Philip Glenister: Americans ruin British TV shows

The 53-year-old actor, who is well known for playing DCI Gene Hunt in the BBC series 'Life on Mars', has bemoaned the trend of TV producers across the pond making their own versions of popular UK shows and turning them into flops.

Speaking about the US version of 'Life on Mars', in which Harvey Keitel played the legendary 70s cop instead, he fumed: "They remade it and messed it up. They did it with 'Mad Dogs' and they messed that up as well. Furious. It's a great source of frustration, I think, certainly for British actors."

Loved shows such as 'Men Behaving Badly', 'The Inbetweeners', 'Broadchurch', 'Absolutely Fabulous' and 'Gavin & Stacey' made their stars famous after drawing huge viewing figures in Britain but when they were recreated in America, they fell to the curse.

So the London-born actor thinks the originals - except for David Brent's 'The Office' which succeeded overseas - should have been given the chance to air on mainstream US telly.

He added: "The one series that seems to have worked for them was 'The Office'.

"They get shown on things like BBC America or PBS but it'd be nice if they'd show it in their entirety on one of the networks."

Philip recently spent five months in South Carolina filming his new paranormal TV drama 'Outcast' as Reverend Anderson who fights a holy war against evil.

A second series is going to be made which means the actor has to return to the US and despite loving the people, he wasn't very impressed with their method of making a cup of tea.

He told the Daily Mirror: "I do love the Americans but they can't make a cup of tea. I had to teach them how to do it."